orpitasingh: Cuba to turn over Florida couple who allegedly abducted children ...

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Cuba to turn over Florida couple who allegedly abducted children ...

Desmond Boylan / Reuters

Joshua Hakken and his wife Sharyn stand inside a building with their two children at the Marina Hemingway complex in Havana on Tuesday.

By Matthew DeLuca, Staff Writer, NBC News

A couple accused of abducting their two young sons from their grandmother in Florida sailed with them to Cuba, which announced Tuesday that it will return the family to the United States.

Cuban authorities confirmed that?Joshua Hakken, 35, and Sharyn Hakken, 34, arrived in the island nation in their sailboat the Salty Paw on Sunday. They notified the U.S. the next day and decided on Tuesday morning to turn over the couple and the kids, a government statement said.

Security agents escorted the family from the marina later in the day, but it was not clear when the handover would take place.

The boys, 2 and 4, had been living with their grandmother in Tampa after their parents lost custody of them.?Police say Joshua Hakken entered the grandmother's house in the early morning of April 3, tied her up and took the children.?

After evading Amber alerts in Florida and Tennessee and Coast Guard boats searching the Gulf of Mexico, the Hakkens made their way to Cuba in the 25-foot blue-and-white sailboat, arriving in bad weather, authorities said.

Even though the U.S. does not have formal relations with Cuba, Havana officials communicated with the U.S. Interests Section and the State Department "to try to guarantee the integrity and well-being of those minors," the statement said.

The boys had been placed in foster care after Joshua Hakken was arrested in a Louisiana hotel room in 2012 on charges including drug possession, according to police in Slidell, La. Sharyn and Joshua Hakken told officers that they planned to ?take a journey to the Armageddon? at the time of the arrest, Slidell police said.

The children were there when the parents were arrested, police said, and several weapons were taken from the room

Terri Durdaller, a spokeswoman at the Florida Department of Children and Families, told the Associated Press it's not clear where the children will be placed when they return to American soil.

"Louisiana is the ultimate decision maker on where these children will reside. It's likely they will be placed back in Florida with the grandmother," she said.